


why am i fucking doing this or: it turns out robb stark can convince theon greyjoy to do pretty much anything

by togglemaps



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Atheist Character, Blow Jobs, Christmas, Discussion of death of non-major character, Fake/Pretend Relationship, First Time, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Oral Sex, Ramsay is his own warning, Swearing, bereavement, i'm pretty sure this is a comedy, what even is this idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 19:02:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,559
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8908318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/togglemaps/pseuds/togglemaps
Summary: In which a recently divorced Robb convinces Theon to pretend to be his boyfriend for Christmas with his family, even though that's the stupidest idea ever, what the fuck Robb.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, so if you catch any typos please give me a yell. This has been sitting on my hard drive for so long it's actually seasonly appropriate, my goodness. 
> 
> The discussion of a death of minor characters is Theon's brothers and that occurred a long time before when the fic is set. I'll put the details in the notes at the end, in case anybody would like to know the details. This fic also has brief mentions of Ramsey, who in this fic was a serial killer who has been caught a couple years earlier. What details were mentioned will also been in notes at the end of the fic.

“Please, please, please,” Robb said, staring at Theon with his big fucking eyes, looking all sad and shit. 

He needed to get a new best friend, one who couldn’t manipulate him just by being sad and in proximity to him. “This is insane. I’m not going to your place for Christmas and pretending that we’re dating.” 

“I would never ask”—inaccurate, Theon thought, he was asking right now—“but Thanksgiving was _awful_. It was my mom’s family getting Roslin and Jeyne mixed up and my Uncle Brandon apparently being unaware that I married Jeyne and not Roslin. He was _pretty_ judgey about it all as well, which is rich coming from him.” 

“Well, you are the human version of a dumpster fire,” Theon said, catching the eye of the bartender and motioning for another beer. 

“But I’m not,” Robb insisted, still with the puppy dog eyes. 

The bartender placed a new bottle of beer in front of Theon. Before he could walk away, Theon said to the man, “So my friend here was engaged to marry one girl, met somebody else and married _her_ a month later, but this was all without telling the first girl. Six months later, you want to guess what happens? Yes, that’s right, he and the second girl get divorced. Who could have predicted that marrying someone you’ve known for a month would end badly? Oh that’s right, _everybody_ , that’s who. Human version of a dumpster fire or human version of a dumpster fire?” 

The bartender cocked a skeptical eyebrow. “Seriously?” he asked Robb. He then made an exceptionally judgemental face and moved on. 

“Oh god, that’s eerie,” Robb said. “That’s the exact same face Uncle Brandon made.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah.”

“That’s pretty rich coming from Brandon Stark. Still, I ran into Roslin a couple of months ago and I think judgement is exactly what you deserve. She’s so nice and her family is so crap. I identify with her in that, you just don’t understand crappy families.” 

“You’re not nice, you just have a crappy family,” Robb said morosely. 

“Harsh, but true, unfortunately.” 

Robb turned towards Theon on his barstool, leaning forward so his stupid, sad face was shown to best effect. “Look, the breakup can even be amicable! No drama at all!”

Theon made an irritated noise. “Our fake breakup fucking should be amicable, we’ve been best friends for long?” 

“You know, I really don’t think I’d be in this position if weren’t for Ramsay and I don’t think I’m getting an adequate amount of sympathy here.” 

“I spent a week in a serial killer’s basement and you spent five minutes, if that, and I have done nothing that would make your Uncle Brandon all judgey.” 

“I’m desperate. Please. And it isn’t like your family celebrate Christmas anyway.” _Again_ with the fucking puppy dog eyes. 

“Seriously?” His father was atheistic the way some people were religious—devoutly and aggressively. Others may have been happy to celebrate Christmas as a secular holiday, but his family was not. Well, except for his Uncle Aeron, who had his own church and a weekly show on a Christian TV network, where he railed against sinners in that terrifying way American Evangelical preachers have, but he didn't so much 'do' secular. 

“Please, please, please.” 

“Urgh. You’re the worst, I hate you.” 

Robb brightened. “So that means you’ll come?” 

“Fine. But if I end up sitting next to Jon, I won’t be held responsible for my actions. He’s so _nice_ these days, it’s like he thinks I’ll break if he speaks to me too loudly.” All the Starks were these days, speaking in quiet, soothing voices that were doubly irritating because these were people who had barely tolerated him before. 

“To be fair—” 

“Shut up.” He was the most pathetic person alive. 

 

“Why are you going to Christmas with the Starks hmm? You aren’t dating that Robb boy are you?” his mother asked him, smiling. He’d had a massive, embarrassing crush on Robb as a teenager and his mother had never seen fit to forget it. His parents lived in a small house these days, just enough room for them and, maybe, just maybe, a grandchild to stay overnight. His father didn’t hold out much hope on the grandchildren front, but his mother was more stubborn about tiny feet being in her future. Preferably tiny feet attached to a baby. 

His father said something about Christmas, pointless consumerism and collective idiocy. He was ignored. 

“No, he just wanted some back up. He’s found the family stuff harder since he and Jeyne got divorced. Robb’s never been interested in dating me, mom.” Saying it aloud was good. Maybe he should say it more than once. In front of a mirror, even. 

“Thinks he’s too good for you,” Balon said, yelling to be heard over the Bruins game on the television. “That whole damned family thinks they’re too good for us.” 

“Robb doesn’t think that,” Theon called back to his father and Balon just grunted in reply. Theon could do that now, could disagree with his father and almost never have him explode with rage for no understandable reason. 

“But the Stark’s think that,” Alannys said, her arms crossed over her chest. 

Theon just shrugged. The Starks had always been immensely kind to Alannys, though it had seemed a patronising sort of kindness to Theon, not something she would have appreciated before the deaths of her eldest sons. 

His father walked Theon out to his car and clasped his hand and embraced him before Theon got into the car. Balon didn’t say a word, but he didn’t need to. These days, Theon understood anyway. 

 

Robb had earnestly agreed that he would be in charge of all gift-giving responsibilities for Christmas lunch, but Theon had his Uncle Rodrik help him pick out a bottle of wine to take with him anyway. He’d been concerned about showing up empty handed but that turned out to be something he shouldn’t have worried about. Even with Theon helping, Robb needed more than one trip from the car to the house to get all his presents inside. 

Theon sat inside the car while Robb got the last load, his chest tight at the idea of all those people. All those people who… _knew_. Who would ask questions or make jokes or, worse, be pleased that he was dating the golden child of Dr and Mrs Stark, power couple extraordinaire. Five children, two high powered careers and somehow nobody yet in jail or rehab. Their perfection was so bright and shiny it was blinding. 

He’d known this was a bad idea. Only the sight of Robb’s concerned, anxious face got him to give up on the idea of making Robb drive him home. He took a deep breath in and opened the front passenger side door. 

“Ok, if you want me to take you home, I can. I mean, this isn’t an execution or anything, most of the people here think you’re—” 

“Don’t even try that bullshit.” 

“Well...they think you’re hella smart.” 

Theon scoffed. “I have a PhD and a post-grad fellowship at Harvard, I’d be extraordinarily offended if they didn’t think I was hella smart.” 

“There we go, there’s the Theon Greyjoy we know and love.” Robb grinned. 

He rolled his eyes. “Tolerate.” 

“ _Love_.” Robb grabbed him by the back of the neck and shook him gently. “You know I love you right? And I wouldn’t have asked you to do this if I thought it was going to go badly.” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Theon muttered. He was blushing. He ducked his head and stepped around Robb and headed towards the house. He wasn’t going to go back down the Robb Stark heart eyes emoji road. He was way too fucking old and Robb way too fucking uninterested for that. 

Oh who the fuck was he kidding. He'd never left the Robb Stark heart eyes emoji road. This was just a gigantic reminder of how alone he was there. He hadn’t thought this would bother him, not at all, but it seemed he was still way more sensitive about the whole ‘Robb Stark will date half the girls at their high school and half the guys in their LGBTQ society at college but not him’ thing than he thought. 

This was such a fucking bad idea. 

He adjusted the cuffs of his heavy wool coat as Robb locked the car. Robb wrapped an arm around Theon’s waist and he tensed for a moment, wanting to draw away, before forcing himself to relax. “You ready?” Robb asked softly. 

“Yep. Let’s do this.”

 

In the kitchen, Mrs. Stark was setting up appetizers and sending them into the living room with Sansa, Arya and Rickon. “It’s so nice you’re here!” she said to Theon, hugging him and squeezing tightly. When she pulled back, she looked him up and down and said to Robb over Theon’s shoulder, “At least somebody knows how to dress up properly.” 

Robb shrugged. He was dressed in old jeans and a heinous Christmas sweater. Theon was dressed in suit pants and a button down. 

He had never, ever thought he would walk into Catelyn Stark’s kitchen and have her greet him with anything other than vague irritation at his existence. 

Ned Stark slipped past them into the kitchen, patting both Robb and Theon on the shoulder as he passed. “Better move those gifts out of the hallway,” he told Robb. 

He ended up in the living room with Robb’s Aunt Lyanna and Uncle Brandon. Brandon was working his way through a glass of wine and the holiday blues both, though he looked like he was having a great deal more success with the wine. Lyanna was napping. 

Jon, who was standing on the other side of the room, picked up a bunch of nuts and started trying to throw them into his mother’s mouth. Theon swallowed a laugh and Brandon snickered. When one of them hit Lyanna right between the eyebrows, the three of them burst out laughing and Lyanna started awake, scowling. She picked up one of the nuts off her chest, popped it in her mouth and lunged at Jon. They managed to knock over a chair, two bowls of dip and Brandon’s glass of wine before Ned broke up the wrestling match. 

At least the antics Jon and his mother were passably entertaining, especially when it involved Jon falling over. 

At dinner, Theon ended up sitting between Sansa and Robb, which was probably the best he could hope for. Sansa had been half quiet rabbit and half fierce wolf since she’d left Joffrey, but today she seemed closer to who she had been before than anything. She was smiling and joking and laughing and chatting. 

Everybody was packed so closely together that he can press his side up against Robb’s with almost no effort at all. Accidentally, even. It was a nice feeling, so long as he didn’t think about why he was allowed to do this. Robb pressed his thigh tighter against Theon’s, then reached under the table and squeezed his leg gently and that was a better feeling. When he sneaked a look out of the corner of his eye, Robb was watching him with a soft look on his face. Theon smiled and scrunched his nose up at Robb, who smiled back. 

Uncle Brandon was sitting across from them and he made kissy faces at them and said mockingly, “Awwwww, boys in love, isn’t that lovely.” 

Robb’s hand disappeared from Theon’s leg and he shifted away so they weren’t pressed together so closely and muttered, “Shuddup Uncle Brandon.” His mouth was pressed in a tight, unhappy line. 

Oh wow, that was a bad feeling. He needed to remember it. This wasn’t a real thing, it was a show to make Robb find this day bearable. 

It was meant to look like boys in love, but that wasn’t what it was.

 

After dinner, he and Robb stood in a doorway waiting for Robb’s Aunt Lysa to finish fussing over her son Robin when Rickon cackled and said, “Look up!” 

They looked up. Rickon, who was tall enough to tower over both of them without help, was standing on a chair and holding a sprig of mistletoe over their heads. Theon stared up at it, then glanced down at Robb, who was looking straight at him. “You don’t have to,” Robb said quietly. 

“Yes, he does!” Rickon protested, dropping the mistletoe down to wave it between them. 

“Quit it, Rickon!” Arya said, snatching the mistletoe from Rickon. She grabbed the back of his knee and sent him tumbling down onto the couch. 

Catelyn began yelling, sending Arya to one side of the room and Rickon to the other. “No retaliation!” she said to Rickon, eyes narrowed. “This is _Christmas_. There will be _no_ fighting and _no_ ER visits.” There had been more than one Stark Christmas that featured both fighting and ER visits. 

Robb brushed strands of Theon’s black hair out of his face and smiled, then cupped Theon’s face gently in his hands and kissed him chastely, gentle and lingering just a moment longer than necessary. 

He and Robb sat together on the couch while anybody who could be generously described as a child sat as close to the tree as possible, all of them practically vibrating with excitement. Robb had missed Christmas breakfast with his family, which they ate before Mass on Christmas morning. He avoided mass by turning off his phone from 9:30 to 10:30 and then listening guiltily to the messages from his mother after he was 100% certain she was already at Mass and therefore unable to call him. Robb and Mrs. Stark had been waging a war about him going to Mass every Christmas and Easter for three years now and Mrs. Stark seemed about ready to cave. Robb’s issues were ethical, not religious, and it was an argument Mrs. Stark was never going to win. 

So Robb had a mountain of presents for his family, which meant the pile under the tree for Christmas lunch was larger than Theon could ever remember seeing it. He’d been to Christmas lunch at the Starks a few times after his brothers had died, but not since he’d went off to college. 

Theon drank a cup of tea while everybody was opening presents, nudging the presents from Robb’s pile that had ended up in front of him towards Robb’s feet. 

By the time everyone else was done with the presents, there were still a few sitting at Robb’s feet. He motioned towards them and said, “You missed a few.” 

Robb grinned. “I wouldn’t open presents that aren’t mine.” He pushed them towards Theon. 

Theon picked up one of the four presents off the floor. It had ‘to Theon, from Lyanna, Jon and Brandon’ written on a sticker that had been slapped on top of a very badly wrapped present. The others were from Robb, Dr and Mrs Stark and the other children and the last from Sansa. 

“Right,” he said, handing his cup of tea to Robb. “That’s not embarrassing at all.” He opened his presents and set them aside, murmuring his thanks. Once eyes were off him, he placed them with Robb’s stack of gifts—all except for Sansa’s. It was a painting of a ship in a storm that had her signature at the bottom, as different from the gifts of chocolate and alcohol the others had given him as possible. It was so far from the impersonal gifts that could have been grabbed out of the cupboard in case of a last minute guest that it made his chest hurt just a little. He studied the painting, all the shades of black and grey and blue and white that made up the ocean and the sky and the rain. The ship was buffeted on all sides by the storm but it was somehow obvious that it was going to survive it. That the storm would end and the ship would continue on. 

He looked up at Sansa and smiled. She smiled back. Everyone else had starting heading for the dining room for dessert. Robb had grabbed Rickon around the waist and tried to pick him up and it would no doubt soon devolve into a wrestling match on the floor, but Sansa sat down next to him instead of heading into the dining room. “It’s beautiful,” he said. 

She blushed a little and said, “Thank you.” She hesitated, then said, very quickly, “I have some pieces in an art show in a few weeks, if you wanted to come with Robb to the opening. It would be great if you could, I always admired your artwork so much.” 

“I—thank you. I don’t do much of it anymore, but it was always—it was something I enjoyed. You’re still working at the ad agency?” 

“Yeah.” She shrugged. “I mean, it’s stupid work, but it pays the bills and lets me work on my own stuff some. After everything that happened with Joffrey, I don’t...I don’t trust my instincts as much, you know? And that makes creating art so much harder.” 

He nodded. “Yeah. I get that.” 

She picked at imaginary lint on her skirt, eyes on her lap. “Anyway, you don’t have to do anything with the picture if you don’t want to, I just thought of you when it was done.” 

He smiled wryly. “I did draw a lot of pictures of ships in high school.” 

She smiled shyly back and nodded. 

“I’ll find a place for it. It’s beautiful.” 

“I brought you some of everything,” Robb said, dropping down beside Theon and handing him a bowl filled with a nauseating variety of desserts all squished together. “Nice painting by the way, Sansa. I brag about you and how talented you are at work all the time. I’m sure it gets super boring for everyone, because mom does it as well.” 

Sansa laughed. “I don’t think it’s anything to brag about, really.” 

“Pfft,” Robb said. “We’ll be the judge of that.” 

Sansa got up to go see what was left of dessert after it had been attacked by the whole family and Theon picked through the mess of dessert in the bowl, trying to work out what was what and what hadn’t been ruined by being mixed with everything else. 

He set his bowl aside, barely touched, and rested his head on Robb’s shoulder. He closed his eyes and enjoyed this well-known feeling. He’d been using Robb as a pillow since they’d first met, resting his head on Robb’s shoulder, his belly, his thighs. 

When Robb moved, Theon grumbled low in his throat and was dislodged briefly as Robb moved his arm and draped it around Theon’s neck, pulling him in close. 

This was new. Robb usually just rolled his eyes and was a mostly inanimate pillow, which was how the habit survived into their teenage years and beyond. It wasn’t _cuddling_ , not something that could be seen as “gay” by shitty teenage boys. It had always been something close to a joke. Theon used Robb as a pillow. That was it. Or that was all it had been. 

But now Robb had put an arm around him and Theon had his head more on Robb’s chest than his shoulder. _This_ was different. Different and good and seriously fucking awful, why was this happening to him. 

“I feel like a made for tv movie based on Theon is going to be made at some point,” Arya said. “I mean, you spend a week in a serial killer's basement and get rescued by your sister and best friend after they’re Just Not Satisfied with the police response to you going missing? You have all that happen, you deserve your own made for TV movie. A really bad one.” 

Theon’s breath stopped in his chest. 

“ _Was_ he a serial killer?” Jon asked. “I mean, how many people do you have to kill for it to count?” 

“I think it’s seven. Or four,” Arya said. 

“That is two very different and specific numbers,” Sansa said. 

“They’re not _that_ different.” 

“We’re talking three murders here. Pretty different.” 

“How about we talk about something else?” Robb suggested, running the hand that had been wrapped around Theon’s neck down his back. 

Theon forced himself to start breathing again, his chest burning and his fingers—which had not healed right after being badly broken by Ramsey—twitching. 

More than one person murmured an apology and the conversation moved on. Theon waited for everybody to have moved on from watching him with guilt on their faces and for his breathing to have evened out to stand. He took his and Robb’s bowls into the kitchen and started loading the dishwasher. He was halfway done when Mrs. Stark came into the kitchen carrying more dirty dessert bowls. 

“Thanks for doing that,” she said, smiling as she piled the dirty dishes on the sink. “It’s wonderful that you came, by the way. How’s your fellowship going?” 

“It’s fine,” he said quietly, stacking the plates carefully. 

Mrs. Stark smiled and patted him awkwardly on the arm. “It’s just—we’re so happy you’re here, and that Robb is seeing you. We wouldn’t want you to think—well, you’ve done so well for yourself, even with.” She waved a hand through the air and the most pathetic thing was that Theon couldn’t even work it out what precisely she meant by ‘even with’. Even with his family being what they were? Even with what happened with Ramsey? Even with his generally unpleasant personality? Even with not being able to get out of bed some mornings? What? 

He didn’t ask for clarification, just nodded and hoped she would leave him to load the dishes in peace. Once she’d gone and he’d put the dishwasher on, his hands started to shake so badly that he went and sat down at the kitchen table, his back to the door. 

Shame nearly choked him. The Starks had always had so much of everything, always had an excess of it, when his family had had so little. There were days he couldn’t remember life before his brothers had died, before his mother spent most of her time sitting in a chair in the living room staring out a window and his father began exploding with rage at the slightest provocation. His father hadn’t been able to hold down a job for almost five years after Rodrik and Marin died, and Theon had been mortified by their newfound poverty, hadn’t understood enough to see his grief stricken parents for what they were. He and his sister had lived on peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and cereal for years, until his sister hit fifteen and Asha and Theon quietly moved in with their Uncle Rodrik and his wife and three children. 

His father still raged about it sometimes, about his brother-in-law stealing his only remaining children. The truth of the matter still seemed to elude him. The truth was that Rodrik had taken Asha and Theon into his home because they all feared what would happened if someone called social services again. People’s pity for the spectre of dead children only stretched so far. 

It was impossible to explain what it meant to lose a child to someone who had never lost one. It was too big, too awful, too close to the primal part of a person that tells you that your death was preferable to theirs. Theon had seen it up close and even he didn’t really understand it. Balon was the strongest, hardest man Theon had ever known and he’d been brought low by it. 

The Starks had never known any of that. They had five living children and thriving careers and both came from the sort of upper middle class families that Balon had clawed his way up into and then fallen out of. Balon Greyjoy was a failed business man. Ned Stark was one of the world’s foremost oncologists. Catelyn Stark was partner in a PR consulting firm and a former Communications Director for a two-term governor. 

He tried to relax, because tensing up his muscles to try and force the shaking to stop only made it worse, but he kept coming back to that feeling he’d had when she’d said, ‘you’ve done so well for yourself, even with…’ 

He didn’t belong here. He had always been an outsider among these people. 

He sat until the shaking finally stopped, then grabbed his jacket to go outside and bum a cigarette off the smokers who were standing outside in the freezing cold rather than risk Mrs. Stark’s wrath. If he belonged anywhere in the Stark house, it was here, with never married, single mom Lyanna and functioning alcoholic Brandon and even fucking mama’s boy Jon, who was smoking a cigarette while tucked under his mother’s arm, his head resting on her shoulder. 

He smoked enough before he and Robb left later in the day that he put a reminder in his phone to buy a new packet of the pretentious, overpriced French cigarettes that were Jon’s preference for when he next saw the guy. 

He didn’t even fucking like smoking. 

Robb patted him on the arm just before they pulled away from the curb and said, “Thanks man. You’re a lifesaver.” Theon didn’t respond, just pulled off his heavy coat and threw it on the back seat. The thing stunk of cigarette smoke and his head was pounding from too much nicotine. 

He really needed to learn how to say fucking no. 

 

Technically, the Christmas break was for working on research and sorting through mountains of data and just generally doing the parts of his job that weren’t teaching. They weren’t back til late January though, so at eleven the morning after Christmas he sat on a barstool at a dive bar near his sister’s apartment in Southie and ordered a drink. He’d been coming to this bar since he was eighteen and had started spending his summers crashing in whatever crappy house or apartment his sister was renting at the time. 

The bar was run by a middle-aged Englishman with a thick Cockney accent that Theon had found incomprehensible when he first met the man. This early in the morning, the place was empty and Seaworth sat behind the bar occasionally filling up Theon’s glass and giving a running commentary on whatever he had briefly settled on watching on the television. 

This commentary includes some more than passably amusing heckling, but Theon could only muster up an anaemic smile and eventually Seaworth went quiet. 

He was really too old for benders but that had never stopped him in the past. He met up with some friends of his sisters mid-afternoon and wasn’t sober again until New Years.

 

The hangover was monstrous. He spent a considerable period of New Years Eve throwing up in his sister’s bathroom, while she bitched out the people who hadn’t dropped him round hers days ago. She didn’t let him go home until she was certain he wasn’t going to choke to death on his own vomit. At that point, she deposited him in an Uber and told him to enjoy the sweats and the two day hangover and that he should keep her in the lope next time he decided to go on a bender. 

“You had me worried, little brother,” she’d said, messing up his hair. 

He cringed and spent the ride to Cambridge with his arm over his eyes and ignoring any attempts at conversation by the driver. 

Robb, predictably, showed up a couple of hours after he got home with gatorade and burgers. “Wow, you stink,” Robb said. “Is the booze coming out of your _pores_?” 

“Yeah, fuck you too,” he mumbled as he followed Robb into the living room. 

“Asha texted,” Robb said, while Theon tried to choke down the burger. He was fairly certain he wasn’t going to throw it all up when he was done but it was sometimes hard to tell, even when you were as experienced a drinker as Theon was. 

Theon was working his way through his second gatorade when Robb drew in a deep breathe and said, “Asha texted me—” 

“You already said that.” 

“Shut up, asshole, and let me finish. She texted me ‘you broke him, you bought him’.” He was staring at Theon with dark, fierce eyes. “Please tell me you didn’t go on a six day long bender because you pretended to be my date for Christmas. Because.” He grimaced. “I asked you to be my date for Christmas.” 

Theon froze with the bottle halfway to his mouth. Fuck Asha, seriously. “It was five days,” he muttered. 

Robb nodded. “Ok. I’ll see you in a couple of days when you don’t smell like a distillery anymore ok? I wouldn’t want to have this conversation hungover so.” He stood up and pressed a firm kiss to Theon’s temple. “Keep hydrated.” 

Theon stared blankly at Robb as he waved and headed out the door. 

Fucking fuck balls, his fucking life.

 

He tried working for two days, both ‘tried’ and ‘working’ being generous descriptions. On the third day, he texted Robb that he was back to normal and waited for the metaphorical a-bomb to hit. Robb was back at work, so he was coming to Theon’s after work on Friday and it wasn’t that Theon spent the whole time obsessing over it so much as he…thought about it. A lot. 

Robb brought food, because Robb was incapable of going anywhere without bringing food. Theon took the pizza boxes and grabbed some beer. The two of them sat on the living room floor and ate and drank in silence. The food sat heavily in his stomach. 

Once they were done, Theon stared down at the beer bottle resting on his thigh and started picking at the label with his thumb. “You wanted to talk,” Theon said finally. 

“Yeah, yeah, I did. It’s just—you could have said no.” 

“I did say no. You said your bad decisions were because of Ramsey and therefore my fault.” 

“…I didn’t say they were your fault. And that was at least 90% a joke!” 

“A bad joke. I wouldn’t have thought you’d joke about that. There’s you and there’s Asha and you—you _know_. You found me in that fucking basement, you know what it was.” 

“I—yeah. I’m sorry. I just—it fucked me up too and I just, I feel like it shouldn’t have. It happened to you and talking about it any other way just. It doesn’t feel right.” Robb was staring intently at the coffee table, jaw clenched and one hand curled into a fist. 

Theon frowned. “You’re joking right? You have any idea how much that fucked up Asha? She didn’t like to let me out of her sight for months. Like, stood outside the bathroom, slept in the same room kind of fucked up. Believe me, I know it didn’t just happen to me. That’s—it’s fine, OK? It’s fine.” And it was, really. If anyone had the right to take liberties with that shit, it was Robb. 

Robb looked up from the coffee table. “Asha said you’re in love with me. That you have been for years. That it was cruel and selfish of me to ask you to come to Christmas and pretend to be my boyfriend.” 

Theon let out an incredulous, offended noise. “Asha should mind her own fucking business.” 

Robb barely seemed to have heard what Theon said, just kept staring intently at Theon’s face. “I fell in love with you when I was 19,” Robb said. “Or that’s when I realised anyway. You remember that party after midterms in freshmen year?”

“Surprisingly, yes.” He’d been dating Ros the grad student. Good times. 

“There was a moment when I looked at you and I knew that you were it for me. I don’t know how I didn’t know it before then, but I didn’t. I love you, and it’s ok if you don’t feel the same way, but...I shouldn’t have asked you to pretend to be my boyfriend. That was weird of me, I guess.” 

Theon snorted. “A little, maybe.” It was kind of nice not being the weirdest person in a conversation. That didn’t happen to him that all that often. 

“If you want me to go—” 

“No. No, it’s fine. I don’t—is this a joke?” Theon asked, suddenly frustrated. 

“What?” 

“Did Asha put you up to this? Because if she did I officially have no sister.” 

“No, this isn’t a joke...Theon, you’re acting—” a smile tugged at Robb’s lips “—you’re acting like you feel the same way.” 

Theon didn’t say anything for a long moment. “Fuck. I never thought this was an actual possibility.” 

Robb did an absolutely stupid fist pump roundup thing that could only be a variation on the victory dance he’d done in high school whenever he scored a goal in soccer. 

Half horrified and half pleased, Then could only stare until Robb cleared his throat, grinned and said, “Sorry.” 

Why _this_ guy. Why this ridiculous guy. Theon shook his head. “We’ve done this in the wrong order.” 

“What?” 

“We fell in love, you introduced me to your family as your boyfriend and then we got together.” 

Robb snickered. “Well, at least we don’t have to worry about whether or not my family like you. My mom basically had ‘oh, this one’s likely to stick, thank God’ written all over her face all day.” 

Theon shook his head. “That isn’t gonna last. I don’t belong in your family, Robb.” 

“Yeah, you do.” 

“No, I don’t. Yours _functions_. Calling my family dysfunctional isn’t fair to dysfunctional families. Your mother is literally impressed that I managed to do anything at all with my life.” 

Robb grimaced. “I can’t argue with that but just because she thinks it, doesn’t make it true. You worked hard to get where you are. But you know what? You belong in my family because you _are_ my family. We’ve been best friends so long that dating just means I’ll get to include you in my family and Jon won’t be able to argue with me about it anymore.” 

Theon laughed, a half choked sound. His eyes flicked nervously over to Robb, who was now sitting facing Theon and smiling. His eyes were soft and warm and he was staring at Theon like every hope and dream he’d ever dared have had come true all at once. 

It was too much. He had to look away. No one should look at him like that. Yet when he looked back at Robb, he was still sitting there smiling and looking at him the same way. Theon kissed him, partly because he could now and partly because he didn’t have to look at Robb if he was kissing him. 

With the couch behind them and the coffee table in front of them, the angle was awkward. Robb twisted to the side, resting an arm on the couch and pulling Theon closer. 

Theon broke the kiss long enough to scramble onto the couch and to pull his shirt up and over his head. Once he had it in his hand, he hesitated and held the shirt up against his chest. He had scars on his back and chest that were far from pretty, souvenirs from Ramsey Bolton. Since then, he’d had sex only a few times but had been as close to fully clothed as he could get both times. 

Robb had seen him in worse states. Throwing up in a bathroom numerous times when they were in college, on Robb’s bedroom floor sobbing when he was sixteen and terrified about his sister moving out of their uncle’s home. None of that even mentioned Robb finding him lying in a cage in Ramsey’s basement or helping him to the bathroom when he was in the hospital afterwards. Scars wouldn’t surprise Robb. He’d seen them. They were pretty much the opposite of sexy, though, and for a moment Theon considered putting his shirt back on. 

When he finally looked up, Robb was sitting beside him on the couch, his own shirt discarded and having paused in the middle of unzipping his pants. He was watching Theon with quiet, concerned eyes. “We can stop if you want,” Robb said. 

“Obviously,” Theon said. He wouldn’t be here if he thought Robb was that kind of asshole. 

Robb rolled his eyes. “You can put your shirt back on and we can just kiss for a bit if you want. Or not.” 

Theon threw his shirt over the back of the couch and said, “It’s just—I’ve had sex since…you know. It’s just been fully clothed sex. Fucking against a bathroom wall or blow jobs also in a bathroom. I’ve never claimed to be classy.” He grinned as he said it, half-hoping for Robb to laugh. 

“I’m not going to say your scars are sexy or some bullshit like that, Theon. I know how you got them and that it hasn’t been that long since you got them, not really. I also still think you’re hot as hell and that is no lie.” Robb grinned, wide and almost leering. 

Theon laughed. “Yeah. Yeah, ok.” He tilted his head and just _looked_ at Robb, looked at him in a way that he hadn’t ever been allowed to before. Robb was broad shouldered and had a spattering of hair across his chest. He was soft in places that Theon wasn’t—he had a bit of a belly and while his arms had some tone, they weren’t defined the way they had been in high school and college. Whether that was simply age or that no one hated the gym like Robb Stark hated the gym, Theon wasn’t sure. 

Either way, Theon thought Robb was hot as hell and that was no lie. 

When Theon’s eyes met Robb’s, he wasn’t surprised to find them as hungry as his own. He cocked a finger and Robb shuffled forward, reaching out to cup Theon’s face gently in both hands. 

“Hey,” Robb said softly. 

Theon kissed him. He wrapped his arms around the back of Robb’s neck and licked his way into Robb’s mouth, moaning quietly when Robb grabbed ahold of his ass. Robb’s beard brushed sharply against Theon’s face as they kissed but that was good too, the softness of Robb’s lips made better by the prickly feeling of his beard. 

Robb settled back and Theon let out a quiet noise of complaint and tried to follow him, but Robb grabbed Theon’s ass again, this time with both hands and hauled him up onto Robb’s lap. Theon laughed and kissed him again and again, wrapped his arms around the back of Robb’s head. When he finally drew away, he took ahold of Robb’s bottom lip and bit gently on it before he let go. “How do you feel about blow jobs?” Theon asked. 

“I’m in favour of them. Giving, receiving, whatever.” 

Robb’s jeans had already been half undone but Theon and Robb both still had to perform some acrobatics to get them off and discarded on the floor with Robb’s shirt. Theon was laughing again by the time they were done, Robb complaining, “You know, I don’t usually like it when I take my pants off and somebody starts laughing. It hurts my feelings.” 

That just made Theon laugh harder. Once Theon had caught his breath, he kissed Robb again, warm and gentle and almost an apology. 

“I love you,” Robb said between kisses. “I love you so much.” Theon began kissing his way down Robb’s neck and onto his chest, sucking in a bruise near his left nipple. “I can’t believe I’m allowed to say it now.” Robb grabbed Theon’s chin and tilted it upwards. “I love you.” 

For a moment, Theon wasn’t sure what to say. It took him a moment to discard sarcasm and humour and another to decide to say, “I love you too.” He half expected Robb to throw Theon off his lap, jump to his feet and yell ‘Ha! Got you! You didn’t think I was serious did you?’ but he didn’t, just kissed Theon again, this one harder and more possessive. 

Theon reached down and wrapped a hand around Robb’s cock, felt it warm and hard around him. It was too dry to fist properly, so he just ran his fingers lightly up and down until Robb broke the kiss, gasping. 

Theon slipped onto the floor and ran his hands up Robb’s thighs. Robb spread his legs to accommodate Theon properly, slipping off the sofa enough that he’s bracketing Theon between his thighs. For a moment, Theon just rested his check against Robb’s inner thigh with his eyes closed and Robb’s fingers brushing gently through his hair. Even with lust burning hot in him, Theon felt his constant thrum of anxiety ease just a little. Supported, not restrained. 

He opened his eyes and looked at Robb’s hard cock, which was hovering near his eye level. He wrapped a hand around the base and took the head of it in his mouth and sucked gently. Robb moaned and Theon did too, a quiet thing he hoped Robb didn’t hear. Fuck, he liked sucking cock, and he was good at it too. Enthusiasm and practise went a long way and he had a lot of both. 

He let the head pop out of his mouth and sucked and licked gently down the side of it, reaching down to cup Robb’s balls in his free hand. Robb gasped and moaned and let out the occasional ‘oh God’ and ‘Theon, _Christ_ ’. When he gets to the point that he has his nose pressed up against Robb’s pubic hair, he sucks and licks at the base before going back to the head and licking the pre come off it. He then took one of Robb’s balls in his mouth. 

Robb grabbed ahold of Theon’s hair, who smiled a little and glanced up at Robb. Robb pulled Theon’s hair gently when their eyes meet and guided Theon’s head from his balls back to his cock. Theon tried to choke back his moans and Theon swallowed down Robb’s cock as far as he could, pulling back before he could start to choke. The feel of Robb’s cock in his mouth was one of the best feelings he’d ever had, the pain in his jaw and the overwhelming feeling of power and submission all at once. It was _Robb’s_ cock, Robb’s smell, Robb’s trust, Robb’s everything. 

When Robb’s hips bucked, he almost immediately mumbled an apology but Theon moaned and reached down to palm at his cock through his jeans. Robb’s hand tightened in Theon’s hair and he pushed his hips forward again. With Robb sitting on the edge of the couch, it wasn’t easy for him to get enough purchase to fuck Theon’s mouth but he damn well tried. Theon moaned and stilled, left his mouth open and willing and wanting while Robb rested his weight on his feet so he could thrust easier. 

Theon moaned and whimpered and pulled his own cock out of his pants so he could jack it frantically, so turned on he could barely think. 

Robb pulled out of his mouth and asked breathlessly, “Can I come in your mouth?” 

Theon groaned. “Please.” 

Robb guided Theon back onto his cock, his fist tight in Theon’s hair. Theon fisted his cock, occasionally brushing the head of his cock with his thumb, moaning wantonly and his hand getting faster and faster. As his hand got faster, Robb’s thrusts began to falter and his moans started to get louder. “Oh God, so good, your mouth is a fucking gift, yes, yes.” 

Robb came first, hard and loud and Theon swallowed, only a little of it dribbling out of his mouth. Just after Robb collapsed back against the sofa, he spent a moment catching his breath and then pulled Theon up off the floor and into his lap and replaced Theon’s hand with his own. It took only a few pulls for Theon to come and slump against Robb, panting. 

Robb ran a hand through Theon’s hair, the same one that had been clutching tightly at it earlier. “We could have been doing this for _years_ ,” Theon said. 

“Well, I’m just a PR guy who works for his mom. You, on the other hand, are a super smart PhD-having guy who works at Harvard. I think we all know where the responsibility lies.” 

Theon rolled his eyes. “I’m also the guy who spent most of the time between Christmas and New Year on a bender because he liked you too much.” 

“That’s true. I suppose I can accept half the blame. Though maybe that I broke into a serial killer’s house with your sister because we thought he might know where you were should have given you a clue.” 

“You didn’t know he was a serial killer at the time, you just thought he was some guy.” 

“I don’t know, we suspected he was something weird and creepy,” Robb said. 

“Can we not talk about Ramsey please? You’re ruining the afterglow.” 

“I love you.” 

“That’s better.”

**Author's Note:**

> While the mention of the death of his brothers is brief, there is more lengthy discussion of what the death of his brothers did to his parents. What happened to them isn't mentioned, only that they died, and that his father had a great deal of difficulty holding down a job and that both his parents had difficulty functioning as parents afterwards. 
> 
> In terms of Ramsey, Theon was held captive in his basement for a week before being rescued by Robb and Asha, something which had a big impact on all three. Theon has also ended up with scars as a result of his time with Ramsey.


End file.
